Levees.org is devoted to educating America on the facts associated with the 2005 catastrophic flooding of the New Orleans region.

The work of Levees.org is critical because after the levees failed, over 100,000 families were displaced from their support base and could not collectively confront the myths and misinformation that dominated the media after the flooding. The catastrophic flooding of metro New Orleans was due to the failure of the levees and floodwalls which should have performed, and also to the manmade destruction of protective forests and wetlands in south Louisiana which had historically performed as storm surge buffers.

Responsibility for the destruction of south Louisiana’s wetlands is a shared one. Protective cypress groves and wetlands were ravaged in the past 50 years when canals were dredged for shipping and for oil and gas exploration. Meanwhile, the leveeing and weiring of the Mississippi River over the past 150 years by the U.S. government to benefit navigation has starved south Louisiana’s wetlands of nourishing silt leading to their progressive loss.

And so in October 2005, with a mission of education, Levees.org was founded by Sandy Rosenthal and her son Stanford, then 48 and 15 while exiled in Lafayette, Louisiana.

With 55% of the American people living in counties protected by levees, it’s important that Americans living outside the New Orleans region understand what really happened in south Louisiana during Katrina.

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Timed for the 11th anniversary of the Flooding during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, this video puts a dagger into the myth that the pre-Katrina Orleans Levee Board neglected to properly inspect flood protection levees. Narrated by H.J. Bosworth, Jr. Thanks to Dan Poulin who kindly loaned his Ferrari. American flag art by Stanford Rosenthal. Filmed and edited by Ralph Madison.

It was a busy morning for the non-profit group Levees.org. Our commentary was featured in two respected news sources. First, in a national story by CBS Moneywatch on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' failure to implement Congress's directives to make all levees in the nation safer. An hour later, the New Orleans Times-Picayune featured a joint oped by me and Stephen Estopinal, past president and 5+ year veteran of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East. The national story and the co-authored expert piece are proof that your efforts are paying off. They are evidence that your time supporting Levees.org is well-invested.

Opinion by Sandy Rosenthal and Stephen Estopinal The greater New Orleans urban flood protection system has no peer. On a scale of one to 10, if the system here were a 10, the next closest — Cape Girardeau, Mo. — would...

The free two-hour tour is a healthy, meaningful way to find out more about the worst civil engineering disaster in U.S. history. Beginning at City Park, we'll cycle along Bayou St. John to the first stop, the east breach of the London Avenue Canal. Traveling alongside the canal, the next stop is the west breach of the London Avenue Canal. Then, cyclists will ride along Lake Pontchartrain to the 17th Street Canal breach site before heading back to City Park. Time permitting, there are other stops, too. Cyclists can view the breach sites and the affected neighborhoods and will hear brief discussions on the failure of levees and flood walls designed and built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

New details continue to emerge about why New Orleans flooded so horrifically during Hurricane Katrina. A carefully researched story by Pulitzer prize winner Mark Schleifstein describes how immediately after the flooding event, independent levee investigators were told incorrect information by "various members of the corps New Orleans district."

For example, Drs. Raymond Seed and J. David Rogers–the lead investigators for a study funded by the National Science Foundation–were told that the design of the 17th Street and London Avenue Canals was "forced" on the Army Corps of Engineers against their will. This and other wrong information caused the investigators to conclude that the Orleans Levee Board was partly to blame for the collapse of the canal walls during Katrina.

A new article published last Thursday in Water Policy (the official journal of the World Water Council) contains a retraction of those wrong conclusions. The tight concise paper separates the facts from the fairy tale. Drs. Seed, Rogers and others now say it was the the Army Corps of Engineers that doomed New Orleans because the corps had made a tragic miscalculation on a large-scale study they did in the 1980s.

"The corps misinterpreted the study's findings, concluding that sheet piling that extended deeper would not significantly increase the stability of the I-walls under the short-term loading conditions during a hurricane, meaning the amount of time high water would be on the wall would likely only be a few hours."

The paper also reconfirms that responsibility for the infamous annual “drive by levee inspections” belonged solely to the corps, and at the end of the day were irrelevant anyway.

This article is further proof that your support is generating results.

The Army Corps of Engineers had recommended either raising floodwalls and building gates at the mouths of New Orleans drainage canals as equally protective storm surge defenses, and recommended the gates because they would be less expensive to the federal government, the study concludes.

It's a story about a brand new scientific article by famous engineering experts Ray Seed and Dave Rogers. The article actually contains a retraction of statements they made in 2006 about who is responsible for the levee breaches.

The article, accepted for publication in Water Policy (the prestigious journal of the World Water Council) backpedals on damning statements Seed and Rogers made, namely that local levee board officials used politics to force the Army Corps of Engineers to build the inferior levee system that failed ten years ago.

The tight concise paper separates the facts from the fairy tale.

According the authors, it was the Army Corps that doomed New Orleans because 1) the Corps made a tragic miscalculation on a large-scale study they did in the 1980s, and 2) the Corps believed it was congressionally mandated to build structures that cost the least.

The 14-page article is also a “one stop shop” and addresses most, if not all, of the significant issues and events relating to the cause of the flooding during Katrina. Check out the NYT story by Campbell Robertson and John Schwartz.

Levees.org is raising funds to build an Open-air Levee Exhibition in New Orleans. We will work in partnership with the neighborhood residents of Gentilly whose homes were flooded when federally built levees failed during Katrina. The money will be used to build informative exhibits and to plant a beautiful garden at the east breach site of the London Avenue Canal.

The goal is for visitors to learn about and reflect upon the historic event which changed the lives of over a million people. The exhibit and garden will be a memorial to the trauma of the Flood, a commemoration of a pivotal moment in American history, and a symbol of the residents’ resilience and determination to return home.

The new Levee Authority East has filed lawsuit against 97 oil, gas and pipeline companies demanding that they fix the coastal wetlands that they had destroyed. Because the coast protects us from hurricane flooding.

Please send an email to these members. You can email the whole group at once:

Please do not yield to pressure from the Governor nor the oil and gas industry. Please recommend a list of qualified applicants for the Flood Authority East by the September 30th deadline. Failing to do so means the Governor can choose whoever he wants.

The elected officials in this country have lost their minds and so have others that work under them. The safety of the people who live here must become a number one priority! To have another failed Levee that is preventable , to me is treason! Just as they say that Israel security is sacrosanct with America. We need these levees to be sacrosanct as well! Truth has come to you! It's Hour Time Now www.hourtimenow.com